Susan B. Solomon holds two degrees in history:
B.A. from Douglass College in Rutgers University, and an M.A. from Yale University with a concentration in slavery in the Americas. Susan also holds a degree in Dental Hygiene, has published articles in a professional hygienists’ journal, and has attended a number of dental missions in Central and South America. She is a former member of The Farm Community of Summertown, Tennessee, having lived there for ten years, and now resides in Nashville .
In 1992 Susan saw an opportunity to raise funds for the Nashville Peace and Justice Center, of which she was a founding member, on its one-year anniversary by staging her friend Marilyn’s play. She also saw a way “to educate and set the record straight as to the ‘true history’ of the European invasion of the Americas.”
“The play,” Susan recalls, “was a challenge to present because there were so many characters and scenes. We decided that each actor could portray many characters by quickly changing costumes while the rapper was rapping.”
The venue was the Scarritt Bennett Center in Nashville, a non-profit offering a space where individuals and groups engage each other to achieve a more just world. Susan secured this venue for two performances and threw herself into every detail of the production: creation of the sets and costumes with help from Howard Switzer and their son Oran, 14, who played Balboa and other roles; typing and duplication of scripts; scheduling of rehearsals; stitching of the royal coat of arms of Spain. She designed the playbill, re-drawing a figure from the Mayan Codex, and played the roles of Queen Isabella, a gold-digger, Beatriz and a chorus girl.
Not the least of Susan’s achievements was to comb through Nashville for actors inspired by the script. She found “a number of former Farm members in town who agreed to act in the play, as well as volunteers from the Peace and Justice community. Susan named the cast The Peace and Justice Characters, and called the play “A Rapperetta.” “The production,” she fondly recalls, “was infused with music, humor and the truth.”